STANFORD—As machines manage more everyday tasks, a group of scholars is thinking about the legal challenges that may arise.

“I worry that in the absence of some good, up-front thought about the question of liability, we’ll have some high-profile cases that will turn the public against robots or chill innovation and make it less likely for engineers to go into the field and less likely for capital to flow in the area,” says M. Ryan Calo, a residential fellow at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society.